Lab Owner Avoids 'Very Long' Prison Term For $89M Fraud

By Carla Baranauckas

A Utah businessman who cooperated with prosecutors after admitting his role in a false Medicare claims scheme was sentenced Wednesday in New Jersey federal court to three years of probation and ordered to forfeit $28 million.

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MicroBilt Awarded $13M In Contract Fight With Bail Bondsman

By George Woolston

A New Jersey federal judge has adopted the recommendation of a special master to award more than $13 million to a credit reporting agency in its suit against a bail services company alleging a breach of contract over the provision of a mobile device verification service.

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Recycler Says City's Wrongful License Suspension Cost $10M  

By George Woolston

The operator of a metal recycling scrapyard in Camden, New Jersey, currently facing two lawsuits over its handling of the facility has filed its own lawsuit in state court, alleging the city acted beyond its statutory authority in suspending the operator's license.

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Glenmark Pharma Beats Suit Over Recalled Cholesterol Drugs

By Rae Ann Varona

A New Jersey federal judge Wednesday tossed a proposed class action that accused drugmaker Glenmark Pharmaceuticals of falsely representing that its statin cholesterol drugs were safe and effective despite a recall over its manufacturing practices, saying plaintiff consumers' lack of actual economic or physical injury meant they couldn't sue.

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Embecta Investor Suit Says Pen Needle Weakness Was Hidden

By Katryna Perera

Medical device company Embecta Corp. and two of its executives were hit with a proposed class action Wednesday, alleging they misled investors about the sales performance of the company's pen needles, which are often used by patients with diabetes.

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Doctors Defeat Most Claims In Life Insurance Fraud Dispute

By Hope Patti

A life insurer failed to adequately allege that a pair of doctors were knowingly involved in a purported scheme to defraud the carrier into issuing $160 million worth of policies, a New Jersey federal court ruled, tossing all but one claim brought under the state's Insurance Fraud Protection Act.

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Seward & Kissel Accused Of 'Sham' Privilege Claim In NJ Suit

By Jake Maher

The estranged wife of the billionaire founder of hedge fund Two Sigma Investments is asking a New Jersey state court to rule that Seward & Kissel LLP cannot use attorney-client privilege with her husband to avoid producing discovery documents, accusing the firm of a fraud on the court.

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Fed. Circ. Affirms No Block On Stryker Spine Device In IP Fight

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday agreed with a lower court decision rejecting Boston Scientific Corp.'s request to temporarily block Stryker Corp. from launching a back pain device, saying Stryker made a good enough case that it didn't cause physicians to infringe a patent on the treatment.

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Medline, AdaptHealth Sued Over Deadly Hospital Bed Fire

By Aaron Keller

Medline Industries and AdaptHealth have been sued by the estate and daughter of a Connecticut woman who allegedly died after suffering burns over 47% of her body when an electric-powered hospital-style bed caught fire in a Newtown home.

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Employer Didn't Control Benefits In Death Case, 3rd Circ. Says

By Danielle Ferguson

A Third Circuit panel on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a man's lawsuit alleging his late wife's employer improperly denied life insurance benefits, finding the employer had no control over whether benefits were paid out.

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Venezuela Wins Bid To Delay Hearing In Citgo Sale Case

By Caroline Simson

The Third Circuit has agreed to a two-month postponement of oral arguments in Venezuela's challenge of a Delaware judge's order greenlighting the nearly $6 billion sale of Citgo to satisfy billions of dollars of the country's debt, days after Caracas announced that it was switching counsel.

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SIMAD Can Tap Cash To Open Summer Camps In Ch. 11

By Hilary Russ

SIMAD Holdings Ltd. won court permission on Wednesday to use some of its available $15.6 million of cash on hand as it races to open the 30 children's summer camps it owns for the season, after a freefall bankruptcy filing earlier this month left in doubt the fate of more than 20,000 campers.

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Opinion

Rule Of Law Requires Gov't Engagement With Bar, Not Retreat

A federal agency's absence from national and local bar conferences, most recently illustrated by the U.S. Department of Justice's withdrawal from a New York City Bar Association white collar conference, disserves the bar, the government lawyers themselves and, ultimately, the administration of justice, says Muhammad Faridi at Linklaters.

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Full Fed. Circ. To Hear Immigration Judges' Firing Challenge

By Ganesh Setty

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday agreed to conduct en banc review over the firing of two immigration judges, after the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that they constituted inferior officers who are subject to at-will removal by the president.

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No Discipline For DOJ Atty's 'Lapse Of Judgment' In ICE Case

By Emily Sawicki

A Rhode Island federal prosecutor who knowingly withheld information about a detainee's criminal history at the behest of immigration enforcement, leading to an "unfounded attack" against a federal judge by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the detainee's release, violated his duty of candor but will not face discipline, the district's chief judge determined.

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Trump Halts Clayton Director Hearing Over Blue-Slip Dispute

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump directed Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not to appear for his confirmation hearing Wednesday on his nomination to be director of national intelligence, in part over a blue-slip issue.

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Maya Kowalski Sues Ex-Atty Over Fees, Funding Loan

By Carolina Bolado

Maya Kowalski, the subject of the Netflix documentary "Take Care of Maya," filed a malpractice suit against her former attorney on Wednesday, accusing him of charging excessive fees and improperly orchestrating an advance funding loan after winning a $213 million judgment.

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Sanctioned IP Atty Tells Fed. Circ. 'Integrity' On The Line

By Elliot Weld

An attorney who was sanctioned in a trade dress infringement case due to what a judge said were his repeated misrepresentations has asked the Federal Circuit to lift the penalties against him and his client, saying his "professional and personal integrity, and my family, depends on it."

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Bosch Receives First DOJ Declination Under New Policy

By Sarah Jarvis

German technology company Bosch on Wednesday became the first company to avoid criminal prosecution under a new U.S. Department of Justice enforcement policy after it cooperated with the federal government and agreed to pay $36 million to settle allegations it improperly exported technology products to sanctioned Chinese company Huawei.

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DOJ's Pot Shift Leaves Key Questions For Cannabis Industry

By Sam Reisman

The Trump administration's recent moves to relax federal restrictions on marijuana through the administrative process will have unclear ramifications for all industry players unless Congress steps in to rewrite cannabis law, attorneys heard Wednesday.

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